Essay on "Leadership Style Made Abraham Lincoln a Great"

Essay 10 pages (3522 words) Sources: 2 Style: MLA

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Leadership Style Made Abraham Lincoln a Great Leader?

I have chosen Abraham Lincoln as the subject of this research for several reasons: one, he is one of the most revered and respected leaders in the history of the country; two, he is the man who emancipated the slaves and led America through the bloody, destructive Civil War; and three, Barack Obama has said on many occasions that he looks up to Lincoln and admires Lincoln for not just his accomplishments but for his leadership in desperate times. I have a high opinion for Obama, the enormous problems and challenges he faces and hence his respect for Lincoln stimulates a renewed interest for me in my studies.

As to the kind of leadership that Lincoln exhibited, it would appear that Lincoln was an achievement-motivated political leader. Achievement-motivated leaders are usually "rational negotiators" and they are apt to seek "information and help from technical experts" (Winter, 2002, p. 26). They are known to be "moderate risk-takers" and they use feedback to "modify" their performance in political office. The success that a U.S. President achieves -- and his capacity to lead -- is based in part on his ability "to influence others" and to "energetically pursue objectives" that will have a lasting and profound effect on the functioning of American life (Deluga, 1998, p. 265). In other words, if a president is motivated to be proactive and has charisma to help drive his goals, he will likely be "unconstrained by situational pressures" and will persevere "until goals are realized," writes Ronald Deluga, Professor of Applied Psychology at Bryant University (p. 266). This very aptly describes Abraham Lincoln. The substance of this paper will bear out consistently that Lincoln was a rational negotiator and proactive.

Brief Biography of Lincoln -- The White House & Congress Sources

In Lincoln's Inaugural Address he warned the South: "In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war." He went on, diplomatically but firmly, saying "The government will not assail you…You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to preserve, protect and defend it" (www.whitehouse.gov).

Lincoln made clear that he preferred not to go to war with the South, but it was his duty to protect the Union through the use of federal law. Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809, the son of a frontiersman from Kentucky and had a struggle in his formative years to make a living. His mother died when he was ten years old and he grew up with his father in Indiana where they had "many bears and other wild animals still in the woods" (White House).

He said that he "didn't know much" when he reached young manhood but he could read, write, and "cipher…but that was all." And so me made an "extraordinary effort" to learn whatever he could whenever he could. He was good at splitting rails for fences and he served in the Black Hawk War as a captain. His education in a log cabin school at "short intervals" and he was "self instructed in elementary branches" (U.S. Congress). He studied the principles of law and works on surveying which later led him to become an attorney. He served in the Illinois legislature for eight years and held several other positions: postmaster of New Salem, Illinois; deputy county surveyor; a businessman as a "general merchant in New Salem"; admitted to the Illinois State Bar in 1836 and moved to Springfield Illinois to practice law in 1847; tried several times (but failed) to win election as Republican U.S. Senate; elected as President of the United States in 1860 -- reelected as president in 1864; assassinated on April 14, 1865, which happened to be Good Friday (U.S. Congress).

The White House biography on Lincoln reports that he married Mary Todd and had four boys but only one of the children lived to adulthood. On January 1, 1863, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing the slaves.

Obama and Lincoln -- Parallels That Offer Greater Understanding of Lincoln

An article in Newsweek (Thomas, et al., 2008) points out that the two men were both "thin," hailed from "rude beginnings," were very new to Washington "but wise to the world" and sought to bring the nation together "to face a crisis." Just as Lincoln did, Obama writes his own speeches and pens them on "yellow legal paper" (Thomas). But as to matters of more substance, both men tried to bring divided parties together; in fact Obama used a quote from Lincoln for his victory speech that he gave in Grant Park in Chicago: "We are not enemies, but friends…Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection" (Thomas).

Obama has never made his fondness for Lincoln a secret; indeed, he has taken some flack for it. In The Audacity of Hope Obama quoted from his piece in Time magazine: "In Lincoln's rise from poverty, his ultimate mastery of language and law, his capacity to overcome personal loss and remain determined in the face of repeated defeat -- in all this, he reminded me not just of my own struggles" (Thomas). That passage was blasted by columnist Peggy Noonan in the Wall Street Journal; Noonan wrote that the "previously careful Sen. Barack Obama" is now "flapping his wings in Time magazine and explaining that he's a lot like Abraham Lincoln, only sort of better" (Thomas). "Ouch!" Obama wrote in his book, recalling that attack. Of course if one reads his book, they quickly realize that Obama was not trying to portray himself as Lincoln -- and certainly not saying he was better than Lincoln. But attacks go with the territory, and Obama, like Lincoln, absorbed his bumps and bruises fairly well.

One day Obama was speaking at the dedication of the Lincoln presidential library in Springfield, Illinois; he writes in his book how ironic and yet fitting it was that a black man should speak at the dedication of a Lincoln library.

When Katie Couric of CBS asked Obama which book -- aside from the Holy Bible -- that he would "find essential" in the Oval Office, Obama responded, "Team of Rivals" (Thomas). He chose that book because he wanted to surround himself with high quality people like Lincoln did. Team of Rivals, by Doris Kearns Goodwin, reports on Lincoln actually brought in people better educated and "more experienced and who made no secret of coveting Lincoln's job" (Thomas).

Indeed Obama in time chose his main -- and sometimes bitter -- rival in the long and brutal Democratic Primary, Hillary Clinton, as his Secretary of State; it was certainly the case that Clinton coveted Obama's job, but following in the policies of Lincoln, the president turned to Clinton anyway. In Goodwin's book Lincoln was able to "brilliantly manage his team of rivals," including Secretary of State, William Seward (Thomas). Seward came into Lincoln's cabinet "thinking he would actually be controlling Lincoln," Goodwin wrote in her book (quoted by Thomas).

But Lincoln sat down with Seward and "reminded him who was president" and eventually the two became "close" friends, Thomas paraphrases from the book. In Lincoln's day, secretaries of state or other cabinet members did not just step out on the White House lawn and hold court with talking heads from cable news networks of course; but given the opportunity to speak with Goodwin, Obama said he has "absorbed the deeper meaning of Lincoln's leadership style." (Thomas).

Goodwin told Newsweek that Obama "…has got a temperamental set of qualities that have some resemblance to Lincoln's emotional intelligence" (Thomas). The quality of staying cool under enormous pressure is certainly part of Obama's strength, as was evident during the long campaign -- especially during the debates. When John McCain and Sara Palin attacked Obama repeatedly for "paling around with terrorists" Obama rebutted the charge but remained cool-headed.

Likewise, Lincoln stayed calm during the primary campaign that led to his nomination in 1860. Goodwin (p. 224) explains that Lincoln was "Not hindered by the hubris, delusions, and inconsistencies that plagued his three chief rivals," William Seward and Edward Bates. And while both Seward and Bates "felt compelled in the final months to reposition themselves toward the center of the party, Lincoln never changes his basic stance" (Goodwin, p. 224). This paper is not wholly intended to compare Lincoln and Obama, but the fact that Obama has made so many public pronouncements about his deep reverence for Lincoln's leadership -- and the fact that Obama took the oath of office using Lincoln's Bible -- the Obama -- Lincoln link is valid and worth exploring to some degree.

For example, when Lincoln ran for president, he was an "unlikely" candidate who had "long odds" -- according to Goodwin's book -- precisely the kind of challenge that Obama faced when he launched his campaign in Springfield Illinois, where Lincoln launched his own campaigns for public office,… READ MORE

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